9 January 1993, Hogwarts
Harry woke up in his dormitory while everyone else was asleep. It was later than he usually got up since he decided to take the day as a break. It was the weekend and he had made up his mind to spend more time with his friends, even at the expense of his magical development. Even if he had all the power in the world, one of the things that the Potter scion feared the most was dying alone. Ever since he returned to the castle, he felt oddly relaxed, like a weight had lifted from his shoulders.
The only small issue would be the small amount of awkwardness that was present between Harry and his friends. Ever since he gave them the bean ultimatum, they have been acting a bit weirdly around him. They haven't decided on which road to take, and seeing that Harry started going back to his previous self and actually hanging out with them, they sort of felt like the whole thing resolved itself. Plus, the lack of any attack for almost two months made the whole Chamber of Secrets thing slip away from everyone's mind. Harry's friends probably made an agreement between themselves not to mention the bean exchange, and the Potter scion was more than willing to let the entire thing slide until they eventually cave in and make their decision when Riddle inevitably starts attacking again. It was best to just enjoy the relaxing time in school while he still could.
Speaking of the castle, the atmosphere in Hogwarts after the winter holidays were over, was very tense, and it had everything to do with Longbottom returning. The young Gryffindor's status as a Parselmouth and the fact that no attacks occurred while he was suspended, pretty much made him the culprit in the school population's eyes. The fact that he had gotten away with what was basically a month-long vacation, and a slap on the wrist didn't help matters. Well, there was also his yearlong Quidditch ban and expulsion from his house's team.
The Longbottom scion was particularly vocal about it when he complained to McGonagall about it being an unfair punishment since the entire house would suffer and not just him. Let's just say that the Transfiguration professor wasn't amused. But most of all, Harry could tell that his alienation from the rest of the student body was really affecting him. For all he tried to pretend that everything was normal, Harry could see his fury slowly grow with every person that avoided him or sneered at him. The boy was a few days away from snapping. Harry decided to just stay away from him as much as possible and save himself the headache.
As for Ron Weasley, according to his brothers, the boy had experienced the worst Christmas in his life, when his mother confiscated his gifts and made him eat roast beef sandwiches on Christmas Eve. The boy wasn't even allowed to leave his room. Apparently, while being suspended he had shamed the Weasley family, and he was being punished for it.
The final member of the Golden Trio practically withdrew to herself. Hermione Granger had been oddly silent ever since the incident. She stopped raising her hands during class and wilted every time a professor so much as looked in her direction. Spending almost a month in isolation had really hurt the muggleborn's self-esteem, especially since she was treated as a pariah. Slytherin students particularly glared at the girl, since it was their common room that she broke into, but it never devolved into anything serious. Snape didn't need to tell them how harassing a muggleborn is not a good idea, especially with this whole Heir of Slytherin mess going on.
Even when Longbottom and Weasley's suspensions lifted, the three of them still acted somewhat more distant than they were before. They must have felt invincible in the school since Dumbledore was never going to expel the boy who lived. It would have been political suicide to stop him from pursuing his education, or even worse, drive him to get it in another country, and that's not mentioning the plans that the headmaster had for the Longbottom scion for the next few years.
So, yeah, the Golden Trio thought on a very fundamental level that they could get away with anything in the castle as long as they had 'good intentions'. If Longbottom hadn't been publicly caught, the headmaster would have either threatened or convinced the witnesses to stay silent. Yeah, that timed dispelling of the Polyjuice was one of the best moments of brilliance Harry ever had.
Still, the Potter scion had to regret the tension that his decision to discreetly reveal the intruding Gryffindors caused. The entire house became alert for any other intruders, and even a few paranoid students started to trade code words to verify that they weren't impostors.
Harry changed out of his pyjamas and into his normal clothes. After he was done changing, he put on the new addition to his outfit, a black fedora made of Acromantula silk. Daphne had gotten it to him for Christmas. She had even made sure that no one enchanted it, knowing that Harry would have been the one to do it. He really liked it and there was honestly something about turning a hat into a pocket dimension with an undetectable expansion charm. The Potter scion had even started to learn space magic, since it was a very useful field of magic that wasn't commonly mastered, probably due to how complicated the arithmancy was, and also the fact that any mistake tended to have drastic and often deadly effects.
There was this witch, who tried to expand the space of her handbag, only for her to accidentally turn the inside of the bag into some kind of proto singularity. And since the bint didn't even think about containing the gravity, it sucked her inside and kept her trapped inside. Similarly, there were horror stories about expanded magical tents that collapsed with people inside, squishing the participants into balls of meat. So, yeah, any kind of advanced spacial manipulation was somewhat regulated by the ministry, and you needed to be certified to be able to sell any spatially expanded item. Thankfully, Hogwarts seemed to have enough books on the subject, particularly in the restricted section. And if that collection was unsatisfactory, Harry could just ask Arcturus Black to send him more books on the subject.
Anyway, Daphne's gift was very stylish, and he liked it. The girl seemed to brighten up every time she saw him wearing it, which was a nice feeling. They had all decided to stick with a budget of ten galleons for the gifts this year, since Blaise's mother, who often bought his presents for him, tended to go overboard. Harry had given her a very old book about druids that he had found while pilfering the Room of Hidden Things. He honestly didn't know what to give her. She seemed to like the book, but it wasn't as thought out as his hat had been.
.....
Want to read ahead by more than 60 chapters. Then join my p@treon Right Now.
Link: p*atreon.com/BookReaderBoy (Remove the *)
Also Free members get 2 advanced chapters for Free as well.